You have samples that are eligible for re-sequencing

*By clicking above, you are requesting a re-sequencing of your eligible samples, confirming your eligibility for our patient assistance program, and agreeing to our Terms and Privacy Policy. A claim will be submitted to your health insurance upon re-sequencing.

uBiome clinical tests are fully or partially covered by most health insurance companies under "out-of-network" healthcare benefits, with a valid healthcare provider's order. We have patient assistance programs in place to assist eligible patients with the remaining patient responsibility.

What will the process look like?

1. Upon receipt of your request, we'll ensure that you have the most up to date version of our clinical tests, to date. If you don't, we'll first re-sequence your eligible samples to this version.

2. Around the end of Fall, you'll receive a notification when your newest report (including yeast!) is available.

Which uBiome product is right for you?

SmartGut

SmartJane

Explorer

Patients with chronic gut conditions such as IBD or IBS, or symptoms such as gas, bloating or diarrhea.

Patients with the desire to, alongside their healthcare provider, learn more about their own vaginal health and how to improve conditions, such as discharges or infections, through lifestyle or diet.

Health and wellness tool to help you better discover how diet and lifestyle affect your microbiome.

Doctor authorization required?

Yes

Yes

No

Where is it available?

US and Canada (other countries coming soon)

US and Canada (other countries coming soon)

203 countries and regions where online payments can be made with a credit card or PayPal

What is the price?

uBiome clinical tests are fully or partially covered by most health insurance companies under “out-of-network” healthcare benefits. We have patient assistance programs in place to assist eligible patients with the remaining patient responsibility.

uBiome clinical tests are fully or partially covered by most health insurance companies under “out-of-network” healthcare benefits. We have patient assistance programs in place to assist eligible patients with the remaining patient responsibility.

How Many E. coli Cells Will It Take to Celebrate Our 100th Weekly Edition?

July 26th, 2017

We’re telling you now, it’s a lot.

Please permit us the smallest amount of navel-gazing this week as we write this, our 100th, weekly newsletter.

Yup, it was exactly 100 editions ago that we started pounding the keys to bring you what turned out to be a long and winding road through the world of microbiomes, microbiology, and – frankly – an awful lot of movements of the bowel (the entire focus of our inaugural newsletter, and a subject to which we frequently and happily return).

So, today, we thought it would be appropriate to adopt a theme of 100s.

We’ll also revisit a common bacterium that has made regular appearances over the past 100 weeks.

E. coli – or Escherichia coli, its full name – is a species of bacteria found in the environment, foods, and intestines of people and animals.

And, as it’s frequently used in experiments, it’s also found in one heck of a lot of microbiology labs.

Some strains of E. coli can make people sick, but most are harmless.

Right now, however, we’re more interested in an E. coli cell’s physical attributes.

So, we’ll begin by looking at how many E. coli cells it would take to form a line one hundred centimeters long, should they be positioned nose-to-tail.

Bacterial cells are pretty tiny, and a single cell of E. coli has a length of around two microns.

So, a sizable half million of them (approximately the population of Sacramento) would be needed to make a line one hundred centimeters long – for the non-metric, that’s about 39 inches.

Interestingly, like you probably knew we would, we crunched the numbers to find out how long a line the entire human population of Sacramento would actually make.

Standing rather snugly, one behind the other, this line would stretch from Fort Lauderdale to Key West – around 189 miles.

Like us, perhaps you’ve been in post office lines that felt a bit like this.

What about mass, though?

How many E. coli cells would make up a weight of one hundred grams?

Scientists, perhaps with extremely tiny sets of scales, tell us that a single E. coli cell has a mass of around 1 picogram, a picogram being one trillionth of a gram.